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Monday, November 11, 2013

Trip to Madison

My kids had a 3 1/2 day weekend this past week due to parent / teacher conferences. Since both kids are in junior high and teachers don't request conferences at their school unless they have concerns about a student, we were completely off the hook. My health has been relatively stable for the past month or so, so we decided to make the 4-hour drive to the Wisconsin Dells for the weekend.

It was not terribly busy there, so our accommodations were nice and relatively inexpensive, and the water parks and other attractions were not overly-crowded. We all had fun and it was nice to get a little break for a few days.

On our third day in Wisconsin, we met my sister and her family in Madison. We live a little over 3 hours away from my sister's family, so since we were only an hour from her house, we had to make a point to meet up! We spent the day at the Farmer's Market, visited a little geology museum on the university campus, looked around the capitol building, and went out for lunch together (Porta Bella - good food, terrible service, and we were one of two tables of customers at noon on a Saturday...that should have been our first clue!)

After we parted ways, I used my "Yarn Finder" iPhone app to see if there were any shops I needed to investigate. I was very excited to read the description of "Off The Beaten Path Yarn Shop", because it said they specialized in local yarns, hand-painted yarns, and eco-friendly yarns. After driving about 10 minutes down the road, we we realized the shop no longer existed.

I called the phone number listed for the second shop on my list. That number was no longer in service, either.

So we forged on! Knitting Tree seemed like they might carry some yarn lines that I wasn't familiar with, so we headed over to that shop. I wasn't disappointed! Plenty to choose from, and lots that I liked. It was a little pricier than many of the other LYS I've visited, but they definitely had plenty to tempt me!

I came away with 3 skeins of Prism Yarns Merino Mia in the "Dune" color way. I thought they might make a lovely winter scarf or cowl.

These two black & white skeins from Rhichard Devrieze 100% merino in the "Peppino" color way looked like men's socks to me.

This skein of Malabrigo sock yarn in the "African Violet" color way is my "regret yarn". I love this color purple, and I saw this exact yarn at a shop about a year ago. I wanted to buy it, but my local yarn shop had just started carrying Malabrigo sock yarn at the time, so I thought, "Eventually they'll order this color and I'll buy it from them." Well, it's a year later and I haven't seen it, so I jumped at the chance to buy it when I saw it this time. I think this skein is definitely going to be a fun pair of socks for me. Purple. Love it!

I was out of energy before I was out of yarn shops, so next time I'm in Madison I'll have to finish the yarn tour!